What's the value?

I still remember the day I met Steve almost 4 years ago. I had been thinking about trying Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a while and when I finally got up the courage to walk into my local 10th Planet gym, Steve was behind the front desk. If you had told me that day that me and him would be on a podcast together having this conversation, I would have said "you are f*cking crazy." I never could have imagined how much BJJ and more specifically the 10th Planet family would have impacted my life. And even more specifically Steve, as the owner and head instructor, brings a mindset, philosophy, and energy that drove a lot of that impact. 

Steve and I are similar in that we are constantly seeking "truth." We want to learn more and understand more about ourselves and the universe. So it wasn't a surprise to me that we talked very little about Jiu Jitsu. We spent our time talking about truth, freedom, accountability, God, evolution, happiness, and lots of other super interesting topics. Steve is a free thinker and has really interesting perspectives on all of these philosophical areas, so it was a rich discussion. If you love thinking about really meta topics, then this is the episode for you. It is always fun when I know the guest too, because it allows for even more back and forth and exploration of their views, so we got really deep into all of it.

Probably the thing that stood out most as I reflected back on this conversation was the journey Steve has been on in finding his truth. You'll hear him talk about it a bit, but when I first met Steve he was probably much more focused on growing his business and viewed life more "traditionally." As he began to question and explore more though he went through a process of realizing that self ownership, self love, and accountability are the keys to finding your "truth." It is not about thinking you know better than someone else, or pointing fingers at other people, or focusing on all of the negative aspects of life. It is about searching for answers that make sense for you and trying to embody them as best you can; while understanding you will never stop learning and evolving a long the way. 

"Isn't it a beautiful thing that we get the chance to do more work to become better people?" This was the quote and the sentiment that stuck with me most from my discussion with Denise. We spent much of our conversation talking about how hard it is to truly know and love yourself, how fear and judgement can paralyze us, and how painful it can be to accept the truth about ourselves; and Denise's view on it all was: isn't it beautiful? Isn't it beautiful that we have the ability to view all of these things not as unbearable, overwhelming work; but rather as opportunities to learn and grow? She wasn't in anyway dismissing how hard and ugly the world can be at times, but in spite of all of it she still firmly believes that finding a way to love yourself is the most powerful answer to all of these issues.

As a way of background, Denise was an educator for 31 years (working with many emotionally and developmentally challenged children) and is now an an experienced Empowerment Life Coach and who has worked with hundreds of clients taking them from being hollow, overwhelmed and lost to finding purpose in their lives. As she explained, it was her time as an educator where she had to find ways to understand, connect, and guide children through their own challenges with ego, insecurity, fear, and self hate; that equipped her for the job she has today.

What I loved about this conversation, was that we literally followed the thread of "loving your self" from the beginning and probed, explored, and questioned it all as we worked our way through it. We talked about using nature to help learn about ourselves, how to separate the external noise from your true voice, and the importance of trial and error. Along the way we also asked some philosophical questions like; should we blindly love ourselves no matter what, how do you remove the external noise but not become self centered, and does love of self really help in the most dire of circumstances? This was a really fun and wisdom packed episode, so much thanks to Denise for being on and sharing her perspectives on life.

Larry is a Husband, Father, Marine Veteran, Entrepreneur, Teacher and Political Activist. His mission is to help people find happiness through community and purpose, and as he sees it, that often happens by overcoming bad policy decisions in government. He was the 2018 Libertarian New York State Gubernatorial candidate and garnered about 100,000 votes (more than any previous Libertarian candidate) and is running again for New York State Governor this year.

I really enjoyed getting to talk to Larry, given his beliefs and aspirations. A lot of what this show is about is to try and really dig in to understand who the guest really is. Obviously it starts with what they value, but also goes to how they think, what they are motivated by, how aware they are, etc. So it was really cool to have that type of conversation with someone looking to achieve what Larry is looking to achieve.

He started the conversation off with "empathy" as his most important value. He had a unique take on empathy, in that it is valuable because it allows for more efficiency in solving the big problems we are trying to solve as a society. That naturally led to a conversation about government and the issues Larry sees. We debated some real life scenarios of how his policies would try to address issues like over spending, misaligned incentives, lobbyism, the military industrial complex, and much more.

What I found really interesting about all of this was how pragmatic and incremental Larry's approach is. Most politicians today promise perfection or some utopia that will solve all of the world's problems. Larry's view is, "if you measure my plan against perfection, I'll lose every time" because perfection isn't realistic. But if you are looking for progress and improvement then you should seriously consider his pragmatic approach. Everyone will not agree with his policies or views and that is OK; but it is hard to argue that we are not better off with thoughtful, empathetic leaders in charge rather than dogmatic, unrealistic ones we mostly see today.

"God is about relationships not religion." That was a quote from my guest, El, that really stood out for me. We spent much of the discussion exploring what it means to "talk to God" and how this thing we call "religion" was actually never part of God's plan. El believes that God loves all of us and we were created to be in an on-going, intentional relationship with our creator. At this point, if you are an atheist or not very "religious" you may be starting to roll your eyes. But I have to say, even as someone who considers himself an atheist, I deeply enjoy these conversations about faith and God.

This came up numerous times throughout the episode, but the more I learn and grow, the more I realize how thin the line is between science/logic and God/faith. We often like to make it a very binary dynamic where either you believe in God or you believe in science. You either believe the thoughts in your head are explained by a physiological process including neurons and hormones, or you believe those thoughts are a voice from your creator trying to nudge you towards your true purpose in life. What I loved about El, is that she has a very open and exploratory relationship with God. She believes it is possible both could be true. Science does explain the literal mechanics of how we think, but that does not preclude God from existing and being the ultimate energy that generated the mechanics that allow us to form those thoughts.

The reason El has so much passion about her faith and love for God is because she has seen first hand how it changed her life. She went from someone who feared God and was angry with life, to someone who she describes as a "irrepressible silver-lining spotter with a compulsion to say the stuff most other people only say in their heads. A cheerleader & image bearer, helping you see who God created you to be." This was a truly delightful and insightful conversation, that made me think about my relationship with "God" in ways I had not before.

I often talk about the concept of the "philosopher king" on this podcast. It is something I admire and probably aspire towards. The idea that the "best" people are those that don't acknowledge they are the best, that the wisest are very open about how much they don't know, or that those in power are the ones that don't think they deserve to be in power. The humility and self awareness required to achieve that status is almost mythical in nature. The reality is none of us will probably ever get to that state, but I always value getting to talk to people who aim to live up to that ideal.

My guest today, Gerry, is one of those people. It doesn't take long when you talk to somebody like that to recognize it. It started with his stated value of "reasonableness", which he followed up with an acknowledgement that none of us are nearly as reasonable as we think we are but he is doing his best to try. There was that humility and self awareness; and it came through many times throughout the conversation. Gerry's journey to be more reasonable started about 25 years ago and it was really interesting to hear him talk about the experience. Ironically, he said that he has never been called unreasonable more than since he started making a concerted effort to be more reasonable.

I think that speaks to the nature of the society we live in today. It has become "unreasonable" to try to be objective, fact driven, and humble. Society values people who have hot takes or make bold, conclusive claims. So much so, that Gerry actually described his decision to try to be more reasonable as the "best worst decision of his life." He's seen a ton of benefits from it but he's also found that friends, family, and other acquaintances can get really bothered by it. Obviously he nor I are trying to be overly dramatic about it, there are clearly much harder things to deal with in life, but I do understand the tough road it can be. I really enjoyed exploring all of this with Gerry and trying to understand a bit better what it means to be "reasonable."

Anthony is a Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker specializing in happiness and well-being to improve team dynamics, communication, trust and productivity. His work is based on the research in the fields neuroplasticity, positive psychology and leadership. Given Anthony's background and knowledge this made for a great discussion. We were able to explore big topics like happiness, service to others, gratitude, and others from a philosophical, psychological, and physiological perspective (all the "p's"); which I think you have to do when you are trying to make sense of topics like these.

Anthony started the show by talking about "service" as his most important value, but we quickly used that to run with and talk about "happiness.". We explored if happiness can ever be rooted in pain, if fun generates more happiness than purpose, and how detachment can be the highest form of happiness. Happiness has had such a heavy presence on many of the episodes, so it was really interesting to deep dive into the concept with someone who spends so much time thinking about it.

My favorite part of the conversation though came when we discussed the idea of transcendence. We started to discuss the idea that our human consciousness is allowing us to transcend nature. It seems we are able to detach ourselves from our evolutionary programming and make decisions outside the bounds of what nature or our genetics have encoded. If that is true and we have transcended nature would that make use god like? If we can find happiness in our suffering, is that a divine act? The discussion around all of this was super interesting and thought provoking, so a big thanks to Anthony for being on sharing his perspective.

Silvia is an author and a psychotherapist who believes in the transformative power of psychotherapy to change individuals who can change the world.  

Silvia values "understanding" as the best tool we have to bring more compassion and open dialogue into the world. We need to do the work to understand ourselves, understand others, and understand why we experience the world the way we do. If we do that, then we should have less hidden fears, insecurities, and biases. The ripple effect of that is massive and is why Silvia is so passionate about her work.

I agree with Silvia that we should look at the whole picture and we should do the hard work to better understand ourselves and the world around us. So we spent a good bit of the discussion debating why it is so hard to actually do this. We discussed different factors like power dynamics, parenting approaches, and historical trends. We also discussed current societal issues like race and the patriarchy to see how the value of "understanding" could help.

Maybe my favorite part of the discussion was towards the end when we turned it onto ourselves. Do we actually practice what we preach? Do we prioritize understanding when engaging with someone we disagree? Many of these topics are so easy to buy into conceptually, but when real life emotions and consequences are involved it can all go out the window. So we explored a few social/political topics that ran counter to Silvia's beliefs and saw how understanding worked in those situations as well. 

Michaell was born in Vienna-Austria and now lives in California. He is a Multimedia Artist, writer, and advisor/educator, who is trying to raise our awareness to the true potential of humanity and nature, which are continuously diminished by man-made systems like technology and the economy. Michaell's value was "experiencing his humanness", meaning he looks to experience all aspects of life to try to tap into our human superpowers of creativity, healthy discourse and wisdom.

Art was obviously a big part of the conversation with Michaell and I found it really valuable to deep dive into "art" and understand what role it plays in our lives. Michaell believes one of art's main functions is that it allows meaning to reveal itself. We live in a world filled with dichotomies, contradictions, and paradoxes. We know we should seek the truth about life, but we also know we will likely never find any concrete answers. We all recognize the beauty of freedom and openness, but we also understand the need for systems and structure. I spend a lot of time thinking about these dichotomies and trying to make sense of them. Michaell helped me start to realize the role art plays in bridging the gap. Maybe my favorite quote of the show was "art wants one thing, to be created and exposed." There is something beautiful in that. Something that feels very related to the concept of "truth." Just like art, truth doesn't care about biases, flaws, or insecurities--it just cares about being what it is. 

It made me think that if we want solve many of the issues in the world today, we all need to embrace more of an artistic mindset. It doesn't mean we all have to become painters or musicians, but it would benefit us greatly to not be so finite in our thinking. Michaell believes we have an amazing potential as humans but we limit ourselves with finite and fixed systems. Art is perhaps the most powerful tool we have to rise above those systems and experience life for what it is meant to be.

Gabi is a full time nomad, adventure athlete, and entrepreneur. She grew up with a really unconventional lifestyle, living in RV and traveling the world in search of adventure with her family of 7, ever since she was 14 years old. Through spending so much time in nature, pursuing flow state through climbing, surfing, and mountain biking, she discovered what it means to feel intrinsically worthy & fulfilled-- which led her to her most important value of "personal power."

For Gabi, a big part of embracing personal power is about making a choice to face your fear, pushing beyond your edges, and transforming into the best version of yourself. That feeling of courage and pride you get when you can do that opens you up to so many new experiences in life. We spoke a good bit about ego as part of this discussion too. There is obviously a big shadow part of the ego that can limit us, but Gabi also spoke about the positive side of the ego-- the part that allows us to feel pride when we accomplish really hard or scary things. We also discussed how the ego fits into the flow state. She had a really interesting take, which was that when we enter the flow state, our ego recognizes it no longer has to step in to try to protect us, but rather can take a back seat and just enjoy the ride.

What I loved about this conversation too, was Gabi's authenticity and self awareness. She acknowledged a lot of the privilege she had getting to grow up the way she did and all the positive things it brought her. But she didn't shy away from discussing some of the negative parts of it too. She spoke about how she struggled fitting into society, always felt like the "weird one", and to this day still deals with anxiety around external judgement. That ability to provide a holistic view of her experience (plus her knowledge of the brain and psychology) made her a super insightful guest. I know her lifestyle might not be for everyone, but regardless there is a lot to be learned from her perspective and wisdom.

Mitchell is a career military man first enlisting in the Marines and later being commissioned in the Army. He has multiple combat tours as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Iraq, and later, as an Infantry Company Commander leading the last fighting force out of Iraq in 2011. He has been awarded numerous medals and badges for his service and even after his military career has continued to serve, as a Financial Planner, helping hundreds of soldiers (and others) to improve their financial well being.

Mitchell started us off with "life time learning" as his most important value because he believes learning from the experience, wisdom, and mistakes of those that came before us is an amazing gift. It was really interesting to hear Mitchell's own story and how he didn't follow this value for much of his life. He was raised to believe you have to figure things out for yourself. Despite appreciating some of the benefits this brought him, this is not the approach he takes with his own daughter. He tries to teach her as much as he can, so she won't have to go through the same struggles that he did. 

This led to a fundamental discussion about why we value grit, resiliency, and mental toughness so much; yet many of us strive so hard to try to make our kids' lives easier. How do we make sense of that contradiction, that we are happy we went through struggles in life, but we don't want our kids to go through the same thing? Is it that we really believe it is better for them or do we just think they're not able to handle the suffering we've been through? We got into all of these questions and many more including topics like vulnerability, gratitude, enlightenment, and the unfairness of life.

A big thanks to Mitchell, firstly for his service, but also for being so open about his military experience and how it shaped the way he sees the world today.